Valve has just announced it will start selling applications through Steam. "The Software titles coming to Steam range from creativity to productivity. Many of the launch titles will take advantage of popular Steamworks features, such as easy installation, automatic updating, and the ability to save your work to your personal Steam Cloud space so your files may travel with you. More Software titles will be added in an ongoing fashion following the September 5th launch, and developers will be welcome to submit Software titles via Steam Greenlight." I feel like a broken record at this point, but guys and girls, Valve is going to release specifications for a 'Steambox'. A set of minimum specifications a Linux or Windows machine has to adhere to, either self-built or by an OEM. Steam pre-installed, can be used as regular PC and as a console. With Windows 8 locking itself down, this is their only option - and I applaud it.

Valve is just extending their offers and is becoming another App store.

Not that i mind. Their offers werent bad and a lot of good titles that never hit the shelf got deserved money.

Good decision there. They did now extend their Market into the Linux world which is a great step for users and valve. I hope their App store will also be Linux friendly and also the quality of software they provide.

Linux has great software already but it often doesnt have that well polished feeling Windows or Apple apps have (For example in Audio Production). I think this will add to the user experience and as well as a good platform for smaller dev studios or startups to have a chance at the market.

I don't think anyone, at this stage, even inside Valve, could answer that. I would assume their first release would be an x86 unit, so it would be compatible with all previous software offerings. I wouldn't rule out an ARM tablet or something running Steam in a couple of years though.

I don't think the Steambox will be X86/AMD64 based. I also don't think it will run Windows.

It makes sense for Valve to wait until more games run on Linux and wait until PS4 and Xbox 720 have been released.

With the evolution of ARM SOCs accelerating (Tegra4 with A15 and Kepler looks very promising and Ouya should have picked it) they just need to wait a year and they might offer a machine with similar specs than what Sony and MS offer for a much lower price.

If they go the $99 route they could release an updated version every year. That is against conventional wisdom that consoles shouldn't change for a long time, but Steam games live in the PC ecosystem where every year hardware gets more powerfull and games take advantage of that. The steambox also should.

Hardcore gamers won't mind paying 99 bucks a year for the latest kit and casual gamers will be fine with a few frames per second less.

I don't think the Steambox will be X86/AMD64 based. I also don't think it will run Windows. It makes sense for Valve to wait until more games run on Linux and wait until PS4 and Xbox 720 have been released. With the evolution of ARM SOCs accelerating (Tegra4 with A15 and Kepler looks very promising and Ouya should have picked it) they just need to wait a year and they might offer a machine with similar specs than what Sony and MS offer for a much lower price. If they go the $99 route they could release an updated version every year. That is against conventional wisdom that consoles shouldn't change for a long time, but Steam games live in the PC ecosystem where every year hardware gets more powerfull and games take advantage of that. The steambox also should. Hardcore gamers won't mind paying 99 bucks a year for the latest kit and casual gamers will be fine with a few frames per second less.

The ARM platform has advanced nicely and is capable of some pretty decent visuals, but it's nowhere near close to being on par with today's x86/x64 PCs or the next gen consoles. The PS4 is rumored to be based on a quad core x64 CPU from AMD running at 3.3 ghz with a GPU based on the Radeon 7970. It will be quite a while before an ARM SOC is capable of matching that. ARM chips work damn well in phones and tablets and something like the Ouya could wind up being a big hit for casual gamers in the living room, but ARM chips have a way to go before they can support something like Crysis 3, Watchdogs or Star Wars 1313.

Well, for the first year they just need to be as fast as the X360, PS3 and Wii U, because most games will be crossplatform in that time frame.
I think the Tegra4 with enough RAM might stack up nicely against those.
If they release a new version of the Steambox each year they get to PS4 power in a few years.

I'm sorry but even the lowest end AMD quad can drink ARM's milkshake while it cries in the corner so no way its gonna be ARM based. It may have an ARM CPU for low power mode, so you can watch a video or do light web surfing without firing up the whole system, similar to what Splashtop had there for awhile, but to give up X86 would frankly give up the major advantage Valve has which is the huge amount of games and publishers all lined up. Not every company wants to only make popcap style games and ARM simply can't run something like Saints Row The Third or Just Cause II.

My guess is they'll have a little bidding war before they settle on a system. the question for me is whether they'll go Intel or AMD, AMD can give them cheaper prices and hybrid crossfire but Intel has the IPC lead by a pretty large margin. While I'd love to see a Liano with hybrid crossfire for insane graphics most likely we'll be seeing a low end i5 with Nvidia graphics, reason being an i5 quad with a decent midrange Nvidia GPU would give them a pretty big leap on the competition and give the box some legs.

In the end I think old Gabe is doing this to get back at Ballmer who is trying to screw Valve with the Windows appstore so by coming out with a Steambox old Gabe can take a big chunk of MSFT's customers by offering lower prices and compatibility with the Windows and Linux PC Steam client.

It ultimately boils down to: for games, what is more important, CPU or GPU power?
So, while Intel might have a clear CPU lead, for a ~console the AMD tech would be probably more balanced, with their better GPUs...

And I'd guess it will be most likely a CPU+GPU integrated on one chip. Also not necessarily Intel and AMD being the only choices ...new Nvidia ARM maybe ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Denver ) - or some other multicore ARMs as well (considering that, again, the CPU power isn't even that crucial; but yes, x86 compatibility itself would be an important factor)

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if Valve eyes moving Steam also to Android (as in, onto phones, playing there a similar role as it did on PCs for the last few years)

If they go the $99 route they could release an updated version every year. That is against conventional wisdom that consoles shouldn't change for a long time, but Steam games live in the PC ecosystem where every year hardware gets more powerfull and games take advantage of that. The steambox also should.

Many of the best-selling games on Steam aren't like that at all - certainly most "casual" or indy titles, and Valve itself is actually fairly atypical: more console-like for a long time, more about gameplay than bling. The requirements of Valve games move very slowly, lag behind typical "premier" PC house games - even the latest Source titles can be played quite decently on a nearly decade-old hardware.

Overall, on the PC sid, games don't so much take advantage of constant upgrade cycle, but can also simply get away with more lousy coding & not being able to optimise so much (for what? Nv/ATI low/middle/high or maybe latest Intel GFX? ...but that will likely be much less of a problem with Steambox)

I could see this as BIG deal.
Currently if you buy software on the Apple Store it's tied to only Apple machines. Same with Windows 8. If the software being bought could work on different OS's this could be a big deal.
Example, buy Adobe Photoshop on Steam, decide to buy a new PC using a different OS you could install that software on it still.

I'm not saying Adobe is porting anything to Linux. I just used them as an example between MacOS and Windows.

It is tied to Steam, since it has DRM. So not much better really, except that they seem to be interested in porting Steam to more platforms. But if you can get same software without Steam - there is no much point in it really. What I won't appreciate, is that some software will be distributed through Steam only, requiring you to subscribe to it if you want to get it. That's already bad.

What excites me about this announcement is it means someone might finally be bringing a decent package manager to Windows. One of the big reasons I use Linux is the ease of managing (and updating) software. If Valve can bring similar functionality to Windows, allowing users to easily find, install, remove and update software without a hundred different update apps running in the system tray it would be a huge step forward.

No he's telling the truth, nobody is gonna give you Photoshop 5 for free because you bought Photoshop 4 so a lot of the package management simply won't work. Linux software is free as in beer so nobody cares if its in the repos, when that software is $600+ you damned right they care.

I've been using it for ages and frankly don't have a single updater running in windows as filehippo takes care of all that for me. For new installs I recommend ninite as it takes care of all the initial installs with a fully automated "check boxes, click run" that can't be simpler. http://ninite.com/

But you can't expect to have a Linux style package manager unless you want to tie it to your CC and have it just taken out of your account because most of the popular software on Windows is paid apps.

The question is how are the Linux guys gonna like DRM and paid apps as that is pretty much Steam in a nutshell. Sure i love it and its certainly nicer than SecuROM or Starforce but it IS DRM and every app that goes through it will be using DRM as well. This is why I think the goal will be a Steambox, we're already seeing in the forums how much DRM hate the Linux community has so I seriously doubt valve will make much off that already tiny market, but a Steambox will be just another console where DRM is expected.

I just use two ways to update software - Windows Update or opening an application a pop up shows saying that there's a new version and downloads it.

Because everyone just loves pop ups. I personally love it when you start working and some application starts flashing on your task bar for you attention. You open it and its a damn application updater, you click OK the screen dims and a windows dialogue pops up asking for permission. I really enjoy the break it gives when I'm concentrating.

I also love the way that shut down and restart time in Windows is about 20 minutes because Windows is updating. Other OSes can learn a lot about the best way to do package management from Windows.

My hardware is 7 years old and I have to reboot maybe twice a month, it takes about 2 or 3 minutes to update at most.

Service Pack installation takes about 10-15 minutes at most on a reboot and that happens once every 2 years.

Also the auto-update is an absolute lie, most application prompt you on launch these days there is a newer version, anything else you have installed that nags you for an auto-update is running a service or a background process to check for auto-updates ... which usually means it is utter crap.

If you use crap software on any platform you are going to have a crap experience ... what a surprise</sarcasm>

Admittedly I don't boot into Windows (Vista on my laptop, 7 on Desktop) that often - however, for me it is a common experience when I shut down Windows will inform me that it is installing x number of updates I should not shut down and this usually takes 5 - 10 minutes. When I restart it then informs me its installing x number of updates and I have to wait 5 -10 minutes sometimes longer, infrequently less. Even if it was only 3 minutes is this acceptable? In Linux this never happens.

Also the auto-update is an absolute lie, most application prompt you on launch these days there is a newer version.

Java updater immediately comes to mind - but even with your best case scenario when I start an app I want it to start not inform me it wants to update.

You do realise calling someone a liar is offensive? last time you responded to a post of mine you told me to f**K off. You seem to have great difficulty responding appropriately.

The poster did not appear to be surprised, but rather the poster was annoyed. Which isn't surprising. But a 20 minute bootup time still seems awfully long in my eyes, but perhaps it is different for users of windows server 2008. We may not get that many updates anymore or what? Or what is just a bit of hyperbolean logic?

10 minute boot up time after a service pack on my 7 year old machine, that is one big update and It happens once per install, other updates install silently in the background and the boot-up is only slightly longer than a minute or two afterwards.

I am sorry but I simple don't believe them. It not my experience using Windows 7 and my hardware is "old". First gen Core 2 duo and an ancient nForce 6 motherboard.

My laptop is a 1.2ghz Core 2 duo, with a 4200rpm drive ... and even then the updates don't take that long.

Also lets not forget, the system asks you whether you want to postpone the reboot.

As for the semantics between surprised and annoyed, they usually come together being part of a negative reaction towards something ... in anycase arguing semantics when the meaning is quite clear is pointless and doesn't really move the conversation on.

But a 20 minute bootup time still seems awfully long in my eyes.logic?

Ten minutes to shut down whilst downloading updates and installing updates then ten minutes to start up while windows configures updates 20 minutes in total.

So you don't reboot into it regularly and you are surprised that there are more updates and they take longer to install?

I am sure if I didn't boot my fedora core installation in 3 months it would take a while to download and install all the updates

.

I'm sure if I didn't run my Ubuntu or Debian box for a while it would take a while to download and install updates. What it wouldn't do is take 10 minutes to shut down while it was downloading the updates with no get out option and then take 10 minutes to apply them on next start up again with no option for just starting.

Admittedly I don't boot into Windows (Vista on my laptop, 7 on Desktop) that often - however, for me it is a common experience when I shut down Windows will inform me that it is installing x number of updates I should not shut down and this usually takes 5 - 10 minutes. When I restart it then informs me its installing x number of updates and I have to wait 5 -10 minutes sometimes longer, infrequently less. Even if it was only 3 minutes is this acceptable? In Linux this never happens.

Your system does seem to be unusually slow. You ask, is 3 minutes acceptable? Sure, why shouldn't it be? No updates occur instantaneously. It can easily happen in Linux too. Don't update your Linux packages in a while and when you finally do, it's going to take a few minutes.

Btw, Linux also has it's own big problems and annoyances so be careful how much you try to put it on a pedestal.

Your system does seem to be unusually slow. You ask, is 3 minutes acceptable? Sure, why shouldn't it be? No updates occur instantaneously. It can easily happen in Linux too. Don't update your Linux packages in a while and when you finally do, it's going to take a few minutes.

Btw, Linux also has it's own big problems and annoyances so be careful how much you try to put it on a pedestal.

I don't believe my Windows is slow - in fact I know it isn't my Windows is actually quite fast as it doesn't have loads of crap installed, just NOD AV, Office and a couple of other Windows only apps, the update on Windows I am talking about is normal, so lets not pretend it isn't. Now on Ubuntu updating is great I'm warned of updates (to the whole system apps and all). I click update and it updates I can run other apps whilst this is happening and my boot up and shut down are not effected at all. Linux/Ubuntu is great you should try it.

Ubuntu and other Linux have problems one of them is lack of apps such as games, this valve steam news is very interesting, I'm not absolutely opposed to proprietary software and am interested to see where this goes.

Other OSes are great too FreeBSD and BeOS come to mind, BeOS was a great OS largely killed by lack of apps dirty tricks by MS.

I don't believe my Windows is slow - in fact I know it isn't my Windows is actually quite fast as it doesn't have loads of crap installed, just NOD AV, Office and a couple of other Windows only apps, the update on Windows I am talking about is normal, so lets not pretend it isn't.

If regular updates is taking your system that long, then your system is slow. Thinking otherwise is the only pretending going on here. I have several Windows 7 boxes with various hardware configurations and none are as slow as you claim.

Now on Ubuntu updating is great I'm warned of updates (to the whole system apps and all). I click update and it updates I can run other apps whilst this is happening and my boot up and shut down are not effected at all. Linux/Ubuntu is great you should try it.

What exactly are you trying to say here? That Windows users can't run apps while an update is going on? If so, that's completely false.

Btw, I also have several Linux boxes. However, I have absolutely no interest in Ubuntu and very little interest in Linux desktops -- they just don't measure up in my opinion.

Ubuntu and other Linux have problems one of them is lack of apps such as games, this valve steam news is very interesting, I'm not absolutely opposed to proprietary software and am interested to see where this goes.

When I said Linux has it's own big problems & annoyances, I wasn't referring to lack of games -- though that is one of them (for many people) as you pointed out. I was talking about more technical issues for example, constant breakage & regressions, and dependency hell (which is in many cases absolutely pathetic). There's a lot of laziness in Linux and it definitely shows.

Well, let's hope they won't dominate Linux app market. It seems to be a very distant threat, but it is possible I guess. People usually choose convinience over security and privacy. But hey - we have package managers and application centers.

I used Windows 8 on a touch screen / laptop (HP Touchsmart TX2) and it is serious amounts of crap. I mean... combine the hatred toward ME and Vista, add in some vomit and feces, and you have Windows 8.

It really is crap for a game platform, unless you have an Xbox 360 or something. It really is a platform that is made to sell the Xbox, and to make application writers cringe.

Gabe is just seeing the writing on the wall and going multiplatform before it's too late.

Microsoft is in such a rush to try to 'catch up' with Apple, that they're losing sight of the one reason that they are still in business, their Desktop Operating system monopoly. The fact that their new 'Desktop' OS is in fact a wannabe Tablet OS, will hurt them (They have so many customers now, I don't think it'll kill them, but it sure will drive a lot of users to Mac or Linux.)

The fact that their new 'Desktop' OS is in fact a wannabe Tablet OS, will hurt them (They have so many customers now, I don't think it'll kill them, but it sure will drive a lot of users to Mac or Linux.)

I agree that Windows 8 won't kill Microsoft, but drive users to Mac or Linux? Nope. It will drive users to do nothing, literally. People will just keep their current (Windows 7) systems and not bother until whatever comes next (after Windows 8) just like they always do.

It will drive users to do nothing, literally. People will just keep their current (Windows 7) systems and not bother until whatever comes next (after Windows 8) just like they always do.

Why exactly was this modded down?

At least in the corporate environment, many have just finished migrating to Windows 7, or are still in the process of doing it.

If Win8 bombs or just doesn't fit their needs people *will* just stay put. I can tell you right now, my organisation is certainly in no rush to go to the next version and if we do move anywhere it's gotta be able to run all the applications Win XP and 7 are capable of running now.

You should be modded up to 50, because you just nailed it. Win 7 has been out barely 3 years, most businesses are just NOW getting it deployed, and the home users? They're happy with it.

I can tell you in my little shop I have a Win 8 system for people to play with alongside the Win 7 units and frankly it doesn't take long for Win 8 to tick them off and they are back onto the Win 7 machines. It has nice features, better memory management than previous versions, and is supported until 2020...why EXACTLY would they want to go to Linux or Mac, where their programs don't run, in the case of Linux they'll have to learn forum hunts and bash fixes, and for what? What does it give them above Win 7? Nothing, just more hassle.

Win 8 is the new MS Bob, Win 7 the new XP. Just as XP is just now dying out after a decade plus of use so too will you see plenty of Win 7 machines in 2017 as there really isn't any reason to switch.

I used Windows 8 on a touch screen / laptop (HP Touchsmart TX2) and it is serious amounts of crap. I mean... combine the hatred toward ME and Vista, add in some vomit and feces, and you have Windows 8.

Vista sold hundreds of millions of copies, hatred is a gross overstatement.

It really is crap for a game platform, unless you have an Xbox 360 or something. It really is a platform that is made to sell the Xbox, and to make application writers cringe.

I'm curious as to why you say this. If anything, it opens up the door to massive indie development with an exposure to potentially millions of paying customers.

Gabe is just seeing the writing on the wall and going multiplatform before it's too late.

I'm all for him going multiplatform, I just think his comments were a bunch of hot air.

Microsoft is in such a rush to try to 'catch up' with Apple, that they're losing sight of the one reason that they are still in business, their Desktop Operating system monopoly. The fact that their new 'Desktop' OS is in fact a wannabe Tablet OS, will hurt them (They have so many customers now, I don't think it'll kill them, but it sure will drive a lot of users to Mac or Linux.)

Just like users fled to OSX and Linux with the supposedly hated Vista? Keep dreaming.

Vista sold hundreds of millions of copies, hatred is a gross overstatement.

And how many of those hundreds of millions were people buying Vista off the shelf without it being bundled with a PC. Not many I'll bet. The vast majority I'm sure were people buying new PCs, and we all know that for a couple of years there the average Joe had no choice but to buy Vista when they wanted a new PC. Bearing in mind that this was a time of massive reductions in the prices of laptops, and when you could see everyone and their granny getting new laptops, it's no wonder Vista had good sales figures.

It doesn't mean it wasn't hated. I've "fixed" dozens of people's laptops over the past 5 years or so by wiping Vista from them and putting XP or 7 in instead. Everyone's been delighted. I also know a few more computery types who bought laptops during this time, and wiped them straight away for XP or 7. Still counted as a Vista sale.

I've been developing something on Windows 8 for the last 8 months, and i'm getting really tired of the bad journalism about Windows 8 being locked down.

Windows 8 on the PC is almost exactly the same as Windows 7 on the PC with the exception that your start menu is now a full screen app which is easily navigable with the keyboard. I won't go into detail on how much i prefer the new 'start' screen than the old start menu, but i'll just say it's a big productivity boost.

I have Steam running, and played some Limbo yesterday. A colleague of mine has tested a wide range of games including Rage, Starcraft 2, Just Cause 2 and Diablo 3 and all run without issue. He even got Baldurs Gate running without issue, something that wouldn't work on Windows 7 for him.

From the Metro standpoint, I have Chrome as my default browser, NOT IE. Because I told Chrome it should be my default in the desktop, Windows now automatically launches all links in Chrome, even from Metro apps - which now launch in the Metro version of Chrome.

The lockdown is a lie. The integration of a store is no different from the Mac AppStore ( and its fullscreen apps ) or Ubuntu's Software center ( with the exception of software freedom ). Valve are only complaining because it's a first point of sale which is integrated into Windows, their biggest platform.

Oh and don't get me wrong, i'd rather be running Steam on Linux, so i'm all for what they're doing, i'm just annoyed at people posting stuff about an OS they haven't used.

That is how I used to think, until I discovered all corporations behave the same, and many of them use open source as a mean to reduce costs without giving anything back.

Microsoft deserves some hate,as they mostly promote their APIs instead of interoperating with standards.

Apple use to have only proprietary APIs back in the old days, became the beloved of many open source geeks after adopting NeXTStep, and now takes the competition to court instead of winning in the market.

Google promotes the "do no evil" motto, yet it is a pain to do business with them, specially if you really on their APIs.

Intel supposedly promotes open source, yet many of their products are as commercial as it gets and target only Windows.